I say weapon because it gets to complicated with all the super powers you can get. Turning invisible, walking through walls, teleporting. So for this I want to limit it to sci fi weapons that at least attempt to have a tech basis. So like not the masters device that turns people into dolls. However we don’t care if we can completely explain how it might be done now. Like lightsabers are fair game. As for me I would go with the star gate zat guns as initially put in. Both lethal and nonlethas and very portable. I want to put an honorable mention for tthe minority report sonic shotgun that seems to run on wind up energy so you should never theoretically run out of ammo. although not so sure as there was no indication you could power up more than one shot at a time.
EDITED: Its a little late at this point as the answers have went way off the rails but in case it gets more replies my intention was a weapon someone might carry around and could use as one person. not a weapons system or vehicle. Also no robots or things that essentially are their own entities. It should be a weapon used in a weapon like manner. aim and fire. also that quote about sufficiently advance technology looks like magic. if it looks like magic to us instead of technology then its to far afield. I hope this makes it more clear what I was looking for. Honestly I would have like to not use weapons as a basis but there are just to many things when you look at all of sci fi.
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Portal Gun, no question.
I never actually played. I assume it creates portals.
Yep, links two portals to each other. Place one over a dangerous area and one below someone, they fall. Boom, a weapon. However, it’s also a very useful tool for transportation purposes.
it’s also a very useful tool for transportation purposes
Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out.
You need the boots, though, otherwise it’s very easy to accidentally go splat.
I may be misremembering it but, I think you are forgetting the most limiting part of the portal gun:
spoiler
It only works on surfaces painted with moon dust.
One on the wall next to me + one on the wall next to my refrigerator = not having to get up for snacks.
Oh, there’s so many other uses for it if you put your mind to it…
lol someone can finally play go fuck yourself
Yes. It could technically be a weapon if you placed a portal up high, and another on the ground under someone.
The best way to use the Portal Device in Hedgewars (especially if you can shoot one end above water), given it doesn’t end your turn.
Yes, but every time I get the chance I either miss too many times or something’s blocking the way.
and tele-fragging: stepping into the same space as your target, theoretically exploding them
I don’t think this one would work, since they don’t occupy any space in the flat plane the portals appear on. You’re just making doors.
Is that a weapon? The game doesn’t let you use it on people.
In Portal 2 there’s a multiplayer mode. It can definitely be used as a weapon when you quickly swap out the portal exit so that your companion falls to their demise.
There are some fun community levels where you can race against a friend and there are all sorts of traps you can trigger/set if you plan it right.
Wow. I didn’t know it was multiplayer. I bought an old Xbox 360 a while back and it came with a bunch of games. I played portal 2 on that. Does it have multiplayer on that platform?
I liked it so much I bought Portal 1. I think it’s better to play them in order. 2 was better than 1.
Oh yeah 100%, you can play portal 2 local co-op or online co-op. I’ve never personally done online co-op on the 360, but it probably works fine.
Portal 1 is single player only and you’re totally right about playing them in order, that’s the way to do it.
Well regrettably my wife didn’t really get the hang of portal and we’re the only two who live here. Maybe when I have a friend over. I’m kind of old and the only friend I have that really plays games lives in the UK. We pay together online. If you’re interested we’ve played:
Borderlands Borderlands 2 Borderlands 3 Tiny Tina’s Wonderland Borderlands the pre-sequel Grim Dawn Aliens elite team Warhammer 40000 space Marines?
And we’re currently playing Aliens Elite Team 2.
I may have forgotten some.
Yeah, I didn’t realize it for a while as well. The multiplayer has its own whole storyline of what happened before GLaDOS took control.
The HL2 multiplayer set to gravity gun only was so fun. We called it “pie fight” since it was 3 Stoogles style chaos. The only thing missing was that you couldn’t use a person’s previous body to kill them. I so wanted to yell “stop hitting yourself” as I bashed someone with their own corpse.
in the game there are not ppl alive anymore, but you use it to “dispose” a lot of angry turrets and eventually get the endboss to hurt themselves.
You can instantly turn anything into a weapon and you can instantly drop the floor out from anyone and drop them from the highest point you can reach.
Yes. It’s a weapon and a tool like an axe is a weapon and a tool
Yeah, I guess so. I only played single player and now I know.
It’s called a gun, so I vote yes.
Nah, huge limitation that it only works on walls painted with moon dust. Even without that detail, the surface needs to be flat and judging by the main characters height, roughly 1m x 2m. Those details really limit its functionality outside the enrichment center.
Then explain the ending of Portal 2. What flat surface exists on the moon?
Judging by the moon landing pictures, most surfaces on the moon are roughly flat especially in the dusty areas.
The games are also a bit inconsistent about what happens when the surface moves. Sometimes the portal fizzles out, and on rare occasions it doesn’t.
If we really want to get into the specifics technically everything is moving. Could maybe that as long as the object is stationary relative to nearby large mass but then that would start to strain the moon shot since that is a separate large moving mass being linked to another moving mass
Scale is important. Yes, the moon is round, but local flatness could be within the tool’s tolerance. Even a surface plate (used by machinists a reference for flatness) has local peaks and valleys if you zoom in on the surface.
idk about flat but it’s 100% covered in moon dust.
Phaser.
- Stun
- Kill
- Vaporize
- Create a source of warmth
- Cook (not shown on screen to my knowledge, but plausible)
- Precisely cut various materials
- Landscape
you know I kinda forgot. it is kinda more utilitarian and they do show them running out but like it seems to take a lot to do so.
Phasers can vaporize people or even big piles of rock within seconds. We’re talking hundreds of millions of Joules of energy.
So it must have at least two batteries, right?
It’s got to be something more exotic than simply dumping energy into the target until it turns to vapor, otherwise there would be horrifying explosions of steam and guts and molten rock, instead of a soft hum and the disappearance of the target.
I choose to believe the vaporize function is actually a one way transporter beam. It digitizes them into the phaser and just deletes the file instead of sending it somewhere to be rebuilt.
That’s a good theory! The development of one could have led to the other. A beam that remotely disassembles something to its subatomic particles without an explosion would have been a necessary part of transporter development, regardless of which was invented first.
Unless they operate on different physics than our universe currently does, there’s no way around it. Energy is energy, it’s the currency of the universe.
Unless they operate on different physics than our universe currently does
It’s Star Trek. Of course it does.
In this case, it’s a fictional particle doing the heavy lifting. Explanations of exactly what it’s supposed to do seem to be inconsistent (it’s Star Trek), but at lower energy levels, it does electromagnetic stuff (including stunning living creatures), at medium energy levels, it does thermal stuff, and at high energy levels, it messes with the strong nuclear force.
Disintegrating something by messing with the strong nuclear force would probably have harmful effects on anything nearby, which is not addressed because it’s Star Trek.
- asplode
Orgazmo’s Orgazmorator, a ray gun that forces orgasm upon whomever it is fired.
*for crime fighting, bad politicians, or consensual encounters, only.
I still quote, “I am Sancho!”
My friend quotes/mimics Neutered Man often to hilarious effect.
Oh god! 🤣🤣🤣
A cheap clone of the Tasp. I assume Orgazmo came after 1970.
It did. It’s a 90s movie from Matt Stone and Trey Parker about a Mormon that becomes a superhero genre pornstar. At the time it was funny as fuck, but haven’t seen it in years to know if it still stands up or not.
If you have a couple drinks first it’s still decent
It does!
Which is a portable version of the Excessive Machine (Orgasmotron) from Barbarella.
The Point of View Gun, conveniently, does precisely what it’s name suggests. That is, if you point it at someone and pull the trigger, they instantly see things from your point of view.
Can you see it’s means it is from my point of view?
I would be a menace to society with that
So one practical question is, can you effectively ‘lie’ to the gun? That is, can you forcibly “believe” for a moment (within your own mind) something which you want to project onto a target with the gun? Or does the gun read only your unfiltered, unconscious beliefs? Is there any discretionary control?
Also, notably, the Point of View Gun does not work on women, so there would be some practical limits to your menacing.
I think with drugs or high blood sugar you could lie to it
Pretty sure it can be countered by a towel.
You sound like a hoopy frood
That was exactly the answer I had in mind.
Yeah, I’d shoot two portals in a vertical line
Undo my belt, lean in and
Change pants without having to look down
Also I’d suck my own diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick
Be your own reach around
I’m pretty sure I can already do that.
Now you’re thinking with portals!
I’m not sure I’d like having a portal gun. I want one. I really want one. I just think life would kinda feel either pointless or overly complicated.
With only one of you with your regular human brain you’d be unable to save the entire world so any good you achieve would feel depressingly underwhelming, like the ending of schindlers list. Also you’d likely fall for a bad guys story and think you’re doing good but actually making shit worse.
If you manage to just be selfish with it and keep it quiet, what would you even do with life? Once you’d done all the landmarks, snuck onto area 51 and shit, what’s left? Doesn’t seem much point working a job, keeping a house or even robbing banks or whatever. Why bother with money when you’ve got a portal gun?
I really want it. But I must never have it.
I shouldn’t feel bad for just using it to reach the fridge from the sofa.
Don’t forget the protective footwear.
A Death Star. Hugely powerful weapon, but also spacious living space, and travel solution all in one. Just need to get a grate over that exhaust port and we’re all good.
Good cafeteria as well.
But the trays are all wet.
Do not underestimate the power of the dishwasher.
One of the Lazy Guns from Against A Dark Background by Iain M. Banks. Point at target. Pull trigger. Target is destroyed in some ridiculous way, like having a piano fall on it.
But don’t point it at the sun. It doesn’t like that.
yeah someone mentioned this but its like the masters doll it falls outside the scope.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Lazy Gun was based on science but it was so advanced no one new how it really worked. The theory was it was moving things between parallel universes. The tech was developed before civilization collapsed and the knowledge was lost*. The issue was also that it would self destruct when someone tried to disassemble it trying to figure it out.
*Against a Dark Background happens in a solar system outside of galaxy. The civilization there is trapped with no way of reaching other stars. They colonized their entire solar system thousands of years ago and since then are stuck in a cycle of growth and collapse with many artifacts from previous high points still present.
Then I choose the pistol (given the name Rimpoche by an AI Bhudda) from Redrobe by Jon Courtenay Grimwood. It provides target identification, auto-aim and sarcasm.
Knife missile faster, cleaner and can be equally whimsical (opening scene of UoW).
Maybe I don’t want it faster and cleaner…
Skaffen-Amtiskaw certainly didn’t.
The Farsight from Perfect Dark (or the equivalent gun from the last season of Deep Space 9). The scope sees through walls quite a distance away, and when fired the shot teleports to the target.
I just rewatched Altered Carbon and I love the idea of the magnetic fletchette pistol, mainly because it’s not too unrealistic. A pistol that launches rounds using mag lev and the rounds can be recalled on command putting them right back into the magazine. Too bad he only uses it like twice in the show.
man I don’t recall that but I only saw like one season.
It was in the first season, like I said it was rarely used but when Kovacs bought it they gave it a solid introduction.
I teally wish we got to see more of that thing in the show! It’s such a stupidly over powered and unique gimmick to not immediately become his signature sidearm and I don’t think he ever uses it after the hospital scene.
Original credit to William Gibson of course.
Not a weapon. A medical tricorder.
yeah I disallowed things like this because then you have all kinds of technology like personal transporters or such to contend with. so wanted to limit it to weapons.
The problem with misclassifying transporters as “non-weapons” is largely down to Starfleet and the sum entirety of its personnel being blithering idiots with the tactical prowess of a beached flounder. Even taking into account all the caveats and technicalities of how and when transporters could or couldn’t be used in canon, the combat utility of such a thing is criminally overlooked.
Myriad are the times when it is apparently perfectly feasible to beam onto the enemy ship, or vise-versa, to engage in merry yet largely ineffective laser beam battles in the corridors wherein practically nobody hits anybody because in the 31st century everyone forgot how to put sights on their guns.
Or, you could just use your transporters to set them up the bomb. You have got a bomb, haven’t you? I’m sure your replicators can make you one. Or you could just pull the pin on a torpedo and then park it on their captain’s lap.
Have the Scary Dogmatic Aliens boarded your ship? Beam their punk asses out into space. Preferably sans their clothes, especially if your transporter chief is any good.
Sustained some battle damage but your transporters are still working? Just start nicking spare parts from your enemy’s ship. Warp coils, antimater injectors, computer consoles, any or all of their guns… I’m sure you can think of plenty of things you could do with some extras of. Or, and I’m just spitballing here, precisely however many square meters of their hull can fit on your transporter pad. Like, maybe the bit of it that separates their bridge from the vacuum of space.
Etc., etc. The possibilities really just suggest themselves. With the technology available in the 'Trek universe, space battles should be significantly shorter, much more chaotic, and an awful lot more interesting than they’re ever depicted on screen. Basically once anyone’s shields are down it should be an out and out prank war, one with lethal stakes that are decided by whoever’s engineers are the most creative and/or vindictive, and who can type the fastest.
That’s before even getting into the wrinkle that photon torpedoes are supposed to travel at warp velocities. Faster than light. There’s no need to even bother to put warheads in the damn things, antimatter based or not. The impact energy alone should be able to core a planet, if only anyone on the writing staff could be trusted to do the math.
Long story, but a means of transport is still a means of transport, not a weapon.
Like the pen is not a weapon, even though they say it is mightier than the sword.
It’s kind of like saying a missile is a means of transport, not a weapon. Transporters are arguably more useful as weapons than transport, but it would end half the episodes in 2 minutes.
You could also selectively beam away important parts of a thing, or just dematerialize and never rematerialize.
It’s kind of like saying a missile is a means of transport, not a weapon.
I know only 2 kinds of missiles, both are built for very specific purposes. No good general example …
if only anyone on the writing staff could be trusted to do the math.
I want to uptoot this so hard!
The nude bomb or the watch from the girl, the goldwatch and everything.
Had to do some looking up to see that that’s two different movies.
The Nude Bomb (1980)
The Girl, The Gold Watch & Everything (1980)
Stargate zats. Stun-kill-delete is really useful.
Ah yes, the plot gun.
A comment above lists a star trek phaser doing similar things, however the zap looks cooler and make a cooler noise
Well, more phallic at least.
*Okay, you know what? I’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that, because that is quite possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say.
If we can walk through walls, why don’t we fall through the floor?
Uhm, okay?
E: took me a while for the reference 🫠
Well I butchered the line. It’s unbutchered now.
I don’t know if it counts as science fiction or fantasy, but The Subtle Knife would be my choice (if I could use it to its full potential).
You got an armored bear friend to do repairs?
M41A Pulse Rifle
I had to look that one up. I kinda thought it might be the gun the terminator asked for at the weapon shop in the first movie that they did not have.
No, that would be a phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range.
Seems like a vastly underpowered plasma rifle
Only if you can’t consistently, precisely, and accurately target a human brainstem.
Half Life Grabbity Gun. More useful than just a weapon and no problem finding ammo.
The Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.
boy this kinda hugs the line. I wanted to keep to much utility things from getting in rather than weapons. I think though it stays in bound and is not quite as bad as the masters doll thing. So good one. This might give a run for the money on the phaser as its basically telekinesis.
The gravity gun is definitely a weapon. Notwithstanding having “gun” right there in the name, Gordon spends much of his time in Ravenholm using it to decapitate zombies by chucking saw blades at them, flinging exploding barrels and welding cylinders around, and so on and so forth. All that’s even before it gets inexplicably powered up by the Combine’s confiscation field and turns into a literal lightning cannon that disintegrates people.
oh yeah I think its fair game but like. right on the edge of it. like in dc they call green lantern rings the most powerful weapons and those would not fit as they are virtually do anything devices.
I mean, nailgun has “gun” in it, but we don’t consider those weapons. Sure they could be used that way, but so can most industrial tools/equipment.
Tell that to Snoop
Not really. You need to press a nail gun against something to fire a nail.
Pick up a car and release. Much death.
